The capsule from Colvale’s subway-like system moved at incredible speeds, but this also served to highlight just how far the Monastery was from the city proper. It wasn’t that the space between was empty. It was hard to tell what the buildings were when they flashed past in barely a second, but most of them appeared to be large plots of land with houses situated in the middle of them. I would have thought that they were farms of some type, but many of the grounds had a more stylized appearance. So they were probably manors of some kind. No matter where you went, there were always wealthy and powerful people who enjoyed having big homes to show that off.
Soon we were passing a behemoth of a building on one side though. The arena that had been pointed out to me when I’d first arrived had been deceptively small in the view from the Grand Abbot’s office. It dwarfed any sports stadium that I had been to back on Earth, although some of the grander American football stadiums could probably compete. I wondered how many people could fit inside it, but figured I would find out. The arena was going to be the center of the Nevernight Festival, which the Apprentices I had started to befriend had talked about quite a lot.
We stalled out at what was apparently the platform for the … what do you even call a subway train system that operates on magical principles. When I asked, whatever word Lyle gave as an answer was just translated as ‘subway’ due to the magic that was playing around in my head. Which was convenient. I was glad I wouldn’t have to work my mind around saying something like magical-capsule-group-conveyence or whatever.
Okyor and Lyle had both chuckled at my question and my obvious touristy reaction to the subway. I cast around for something to ask about that wasn’t Dominions. They both had the intimidating sheen of a fanatic and I knew any questions I asked would lead to confusing rambles until I had a grounding in the game. A topic that had popped up a few times reared its head in my consciousness. “Lyle, I had a question for you.” I forestalled Okyor with a quick, “not about Dominions.”
Lyle raised his eyebrows at my slightly nervous tone. He turned his hand to rest on my shoulder. “I don’t think I’d ever heard you nervous. This must be serious.”
“Maybe? I’m still trying to figure out what real society finds offensive. Living with an anti-magic father left me with not a lot of information about the world. It’s about your magic. The Abbess, I think, said you had death magic. What is that? I mean, it sounds scary. Also, why don’t you have the stripe for it?” I gestured at his chest, where there were only the three stripes of water, earth and mind.
Lyle shrugged and arched an eyebrow. “Scarier than being able to seize control of someone’s mind and drive their body around? Or just wipe away all traces of their memories? Death magic isn’t as terrifying to others as mind magic is.” His free arm lifted up and a new sigil started to form. This time, when it was completed, it flashed to a pale, ghostly gray. “Most of death magic has to do with decay, maybe some other curses. It’s also an effective combat magic, for those interested in that.”
‘What about the undead? Skeleton, zombies, ghouls or things like that. Isn’t that death magic too?” I had been more into the science fiction genre back home than fantasy, but you didn’t grow up in popular culture without knowing about necromancy and all the horrors they could conjure up.
Or, apparently not, as both Okyor and Lyle just looked at me in confusion.Lyle responded, his voice equally confused. “The what? I mean, I recognize all those terms you’ve said, but the idea of death magic doing, what? Animating dead things?” He trailed off and spoke up again, with a considering tone this time. “Hmm, I suppose that could work. Death magic grants me limited control over decaying matter. If I combined …” This time when his voice died down, his face took on the vacant expression of one lost in his own thoughts and he didn’t speak again.
Okyor picked up the conversation. He sounded eager to change the subject. “And now we’ve lost him. He’ll be thinking and then researching down that rabbit hole for a while. He probably won’t refocus back on his actual studies until after the Festival now, when he’s done running down this idea.” He shrugged. “Don’t see the appeal, but I’m not as into the artistry of magic as Lyle is.”
We had now reached the edge of the city and had dipped down into a subterranean labyrinth, our speed slowing noticeably. The craft we were in was guided by magical principles, and so the tunnels were not as well lit as the mundane ones. Fortunately, they weren’t completely unlit, but the occasional blue, glowing stones did little to challenge the darkness. It was oppressive but fortunately did not last very long before the capsule slid to a stop at our destination. A hole in the side melted open. Lyle’s gave me a gentle push to get me moving out the new door, and he followed close behind. Okyor brought up the rear.
Once we were out, the capsule dropped and then seemed to melt into the floor. When I looked down in panic Lyle laughed and gave me a side-hug. “Oh, don’t worry. It’s still there. When I activate the school’s code, it’ll rise back up. But by going into the floor like that, it’ll be out of the way of the real transports.” He used his side-hug to maneuver me further back from the lip where we’d stepped off. A blinking light - familiar to me from subway systems at home - alerted me just as a high-speed blur whipped past me. Shockingly, it didn’t stop. Instead, at certain points along the platform, people stood in clusters inside enchanted rings. As the transport passed the rings, they would flash with the eldritch green energy I had seen indicate teleportation magic before. When the flashes cleared, the rings would be empty, and the transport would continue on its way.
“Whoa.” It may not have been a sophisticated response. But it was what it was. Lyle laughed but then pushed me onward.
“Quick, we have to catch up with Okyor before he gets dragged into some kind of challenge.”
Despite the worry, Okyor was waiting for us outside of a large, glamorous building. It looked like nothing so much as a small palace, with large windows and glittering columns of marble with gilded fluting. As the polished wooden doors swung open, I realized it was a casino.
Okyor immediately faded behind Lyle as a wave of sound swept out of the space. “Come on, Lyle, let's get through the main floor quickly. I don’t want to get sucked into anything.”
Lyle reached back, trying to get Okyor’s hand for a reassuring squeeze, but the motion was evaded. He grabbed mine instead and pulled me forward. Instead of avoiding everybody like I had expected, he steered our small group over to a man dressed in a red shirt and gold trousers. As we approached, I could see Lyle’s shoulders settle back into a more formal bearing. “Footman, tell Clarence that Lyle Karenstrauss wishes to play a trial match of Dominions.”
The footman simply nodded and disappeared into the press of people. Lyle’s face was stony as he looked around the room, while Okyor stepped back up against the wall and dry-washed his hands. Neither of them appeared interested in conversation so I distracted myself by looking around the casino. The gilded fluting of the front columns was a feature throughout the room, framing niches and myriad windows in a baroque style. Plaster made various designs on the walls, although I obviously didn’t recognize the various animal heads and flowers being displayed. Brilliant illumination flared throughout the room from chandeliers that seemed to be made of entire whole pieces of crystal laced with more gold that shone with their own interior light. Looking up past them, I was startled to realize that I did recognize one creature being depicted. Soaring across the vaulted ceiling in vivid azure was a serpentine dragon framed against a pale blue sky. The dragon’s reptilian head was pointed down, looking at a spot in the hall further down. I followed its gaze to an ornate table.
Calling it a table was doing it a disservice. If it had been a classic table, probably close to 60 people could have sat around it. But while it had a wooden edge, the center of the table was made up of swirling, shifting, bed of glittering sand. A hundred people gathered around the contraption, watching the sands. They were too distant for me to tell what the sands were doing, except that they seemed to be in perpetual motion, rising and falling in several shapes. Whatever it was must have been entrancing, as they ignored the rest of the room, where the gamblers at other tables played cards or dice games and cheered or swore as luck turned. As I watched, the table-watchers erupted into sound; whether what happened was good or bad appeared to be a split verdict.
The return of the footman brought my attention back to our party. He was accompanied by an older gentleman wearing similar colors. But where the footman’s were plain, this new guy was anything but. He wore a crimson blazer patterned with gold thread and laid over a similarly shaded vest decorated with paisley swirls of a darker maroon. A stiff-necked gold shirt ran up his neck almost all the way to his chin while similarly brilliant trousers seemed to reflect every photon of the light that was hitting them. The only things on him not of red or gold were his black leather boots and belt, although they both had gilded ruby buckles. In my judgment, it was eye-wateringly gaudy, but it definitely communicated wealth.
“Young Karenstrauss!” The man called out as he approached our group, arms wide. Lyle gave him a thin smile and accepted a brief hug. “Welcome once again. It is always a pleasure to have you join us.” He may have been trying for an affable booming voice, but his natural pitch was too high for the proper affect, so it came out annoying nasal.
“Clarence, it is a pleasure to be back.” Lyle gave a quick flick of his wrist towards me. “This is a new friend of mine, Kyle. He will be studying at the Monastery with me but has never had the pleasure of experiencing Dominions. I have borrowed Okyor from his normal team to run a trial match to show him.”
Clarence whistled in admiration. “A trial match with none other than the Dark Demon. He’ll be getting a rarefied intro at that!”
My brow instantly furrowed at the term. I hadn’t had much exposure to the broader world I had been brought into, but that seemed very racist. I held my tongue, but it was absolutely something I was going to bring up to Lyle when I had a moment. As I came back to the conversation, I heard Clarence hemming and hawing over the rooms being busy. He was gesturing at the front table and said something about festival visitors. Lyle wasn’t saying anything, but his face was getting progressively stormier as the excuses piled up.
Just then a round of cheers and jeers rose from the back table and animated conversations broke out. I looked over to see some people gesturing and complaining while others lined up an alcove to pick up money - earnings on won bets no doubt - and laughed at others talking to them.
Clarence plastered on a showman’s grin. “Well, lucky us. It seems like a match has just ended. Since it’s just a trial match, I’m sure that I can convince the bettors to accept you as a brief interlude between the highlights. Especially when they hear it is two famed locals. I am sure that many will be eager to see the future of Karenstrauss go up against the Dark Demon outside of the group matches.”
Lyle’s face twisted in a brief, annoyed grimace. “That salesmanship is your business, Clarence. Just give me the rooms.” Clarence gave a small half-bow and nodded to the footman before wading back into the crowd of gamblers, heading over to the table of sand. “Snake.” Lyle muttered under his breath venomously.
The footman bade us follow him, but rather than head towards the back, he instead headed for a gallery to the left of the main hall. We came to an ascending staircase fairly quickly, with Okyor trailing silently behind us. While Lyle followed the footman stoically, I turned to whisper to Okyor. “Do you have to put up with that Dark Demon shit often here?” At his quizzical expression, I paused at my own judgment. “Wait, was it not some racist comment about …” I gestured at his skin.
Okyor shook his head. “Oh, no. I get some trouble for being a foreigner, but not much. The Grand Abbot is from my homeland, so they can’t get too much into it. I’d probably get worse closer to the equator, where other countries may have fought wars against people who looked like me. There’s obviously some play on the concept, but it’s because I play a dark mage in Dominions.”
Lyle laughed as he looked back over his shoulder. “Okyor is modest. He and Astri fight in the team ladder. I think they’re currently third in Colvale’s rankings and have quite the fearsome reputation. They have a ranking match against the second-place team set for during the Festival.”
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“We hope to do well.” Okyor shrugged. “I might try out some new strategies against you tonight to see how they work in practice.”
Lyle hissed at him. “Shush.” He glanced at the footman, who was obviously carefully not paying attention to us as he guided us down a hallway painted with scenes of the bucolic countryside. “Do not spoil your future match in a simple trial.” He thought. “Maybe you should play a different element.”
Okyor looked thoughtful but did not respond as we arrived at a pair of doors. Like every other set in this hall, they had been placed right next to each other in an arrangement that made it clear that the rooms were part of a pair. At the footman’s instructions, Okyor went into one while Lyle and I went into the other. The dimensions of the hall had made it clear that these rooms would be small, but I was still surprised at how small. There was only one chair and enough room for me to lurk over Lyle’s shoulder as he sat down. Where his hands rested on the armrests were two pools of the same sand I had seen upstairs. In front of him was a shimmering wall made of the same substance looking like nothing so much as a glittering chalkboard. Back on Earth, it would have been a mystery as to how it stayed upright without the sands cascading to the floor, but here it was obviously magical.
Lyle sitting down was apparently a trigger, for some spring-loaded mechanism underneath the screen popped a tray out to him. Before he did anything else, though, Lyle held his hand out palm up. A spell of pink runes formed in his hand and then rose up and rotated until it sank behind his eyes. I could still see traces of the pink energy as he looked over at me. “It’s a memory spell. I’ll be busy explaining the game to you, but I’ll want to look back later at the game itself, so the spell records it.
“Now, Dominions itself is a complicated game that starts from a simple principle. You are a mage who has been assigned a village to lead. The goal is to build your village up to a grand city. It’s a competition, and at the end of it, whoever has the grander city wins. You’re on the same map though, so you can - and nearly always will - interfere with each other.” As he was talking, Lyle was flicking through what seemed to be some initial prompts getting him to pick names, nationality and mage. “I’m picking a basic beginner set-up. Expert players have specializations, but for beginners it is best to be adaptable. Earth mage is the most common choice, because they get some great advantages when it comes to building. Okyor often plays with dark magic, which is great for hostile acts but doesn’t support its own city well. It works great for group matches, as the other player can focus on building up, but if he sticks with it here, he’ll be at a disadvantage.”
As he finished entering his selections, the tray in front of him separated into two rows and what looked like large, stylized cards emerged from the sand. “Here’s the element of luck which means you can only strategize to an extent. It’s a turn-based game. Each turn, you can play a certain number of cards from the city-deck and a separate number from the mage-deck.” He gestured at the two rows. “As you go through the turns, you get more plays, and there are things you can do in your city to get even more or to draw more cards to give you more options.”
“There’s space for a third row in the tray.” I pointed out.
“If you formally declare war, you’ll get a battle-deck as well. But it’s not always great to jump to that, as it limits some of the city-deck, removes stuff about trade and cultural exchange.” He shrugged. “This is a trial match, so it’ll only be 5 turns. Too short to see all the ins-and-outs. Once we find each other, Okyor or I will probably jump to war pretty quickly. Betting matches are 10 or 15 turns depending on how much you pay Clarence, and ranking Ladder matches are always 15.”
“But I didn’t see you pay him.” I'm sure my face took on a confused look as I tried to run the conversation back through my head, but realized I had been distracted by the room and by what I thought had been the racism. I started to see the value in the memory spell that Lyle had used for the game. I would have to get him to teach it to me.
Lyle shrugged. “My family has an open account at Dragon Hall. Most of the wealthy families of Colvale keep accounts in each other’s businesses. The accountants square it all up every month and pass the money around. Clarence may not be one of us, but he’s finagled his way into the system.” He gestured back at the cards that had appeared. “You can play the cards in any order, and they affect the ones after them. But once you’ve played, no take-backs.”
The sands in the wall in front of us shifted, forming a top down view of a town. While the sands’ default color had been blue, once they started to render an image, they took on surprisingly life-like hues of basic wooden buildings. Stretching off in all directions around it was a featureless fog bank that faded back into blue sands around the edges.
“Alright, so already we know a few things.” Lyle gestured at the screen. “Wooden buildings means this is a fertile map, which is good as I chose a farming civilization that would have really suffered in an arid climate. Arid is rare though, and makes for very chaotic matches as few plan for it. We’ll have to explore more to see if it's temperate or tropical but we can rule out desert. Tundra is also unlikely, as the houses are not robust enough for that kind of snow.”
“Do you not know all of that beforehand?” I thought back to the few strategy games I had played back on Earth. Usually you got to pick the elements of the map during the opening phases but this didn’t sound like it.
“No, Clarence’s team decides that at the same time as you’re picking your figures. He says it’s randomly chosen, but he wouldn’t know integrity if it stood naked before him. I bet you could buy it, but for something like this, nobody would mess with it. The only constants are the starting locations, dead center in one of four quadrants. You just don’t know which one you’re in until you start exploring.”
He reached out and pulled two cards up from the tray in front of him, one from each row. When they reached a few inches off of the tray they locked into place and the edges glowed blue. “On turn one, you only get 2 actions from each row. But these two don’t connect to each other and are great openers.” He gestured at the one from the city-deck. “I said I picked a farming society. There are a dozen different civilizations the makers have designed decks for, modeled off of real historical groups. They get similar actions but all slightly different. The one I picked, the Cibellians, are great because they're farming economy is paired with high mobility units. They get mounted scouts and a unique scouting pattern called Spiral Patrol. With just one card, I’ll reveal a fairly large area around me, but it’ll be focused on my city. Great for developing my space, not so great for finding Okyor.”
He gestured at the mage card he’d played. “Each of the mage types gets its own unique options. This is the most common card for Earth mages. Stone Construction will make it so that any building I do for the rest of my turn only counts for half a card.” He considered the cards that remained on the table and fell silent for a moment. With quick gestures, he raised up two more cards from the city-deck and a second mage-card. “I’m going to take a gamble with what my city builds. Food storage is important but I also got a rare card to build a mage training center. It’ll increase the number of mage cards I can play in future rounds and add some cards to the deck about developing my mage character with additional affinities. I had to pass up some resource generation plays, but I’m hoping that it’ll be worth it. My other mage card is another scouting play, Earthen Attunement will reveal any magically important stones or metals within a certain radius of my city. It’s a gamble playing it this early instead of something to increase my magical power. More magical power would increase the radius but I didn’t have a good strengthening card this round and trial matches are short.”
With his choices locked in, the rest of the cards disappeared back into the sands. Lyle put his hands into the pockets of his chair and somehow manipulated the screen. “Now that I’ve made my choices, I need to place my buildings. There’s a whole science to the placement to get good bonuses, but this early it doesn’t matter so much. I’ll just start to make a magical quarter and an industrial quarter.” The board shimmered as if waves were crashing over it. “Now, the game processes it all. There won’t be any conflicts to resolve yet so it’ll…” The waves steadied and the town reappeared, this time surrounded by a bunch of new territory and in possession of new, stone, buildings.
A bulleted list of text emerged from the sands as Lyle scanned the map. “Kairos’s bum!” From the tone, I supposed that was a swear. When I made an inquisitive sound. “My Earthen Attunement didn’t detect anything useful in the area. There might still be plants or animals in the scout report, but no magical stone or metal.” He read the reports and made an annoyed sound. “Nothing unusual is jumping out at me. Cibellians were fairly low magic, so their general scouts might not recognize all the resources. But that’s also troubling.” He gestured at what seemed to be a harmless line about strange eddies in the wind. “The game wouldn’t be telling me that unless something was causing it. It could be an air-aligned magical beast, or it could be that Okyor is playing as an air mage and has already located my people somehow.”
Unfortunately for Lyle, the latter was what proved to be the case. I can’t say as how I understood everything about the next hour of the game, even though Lyle made a valiant effort at explaining it. It was an incredibly complex game that only got more complex as more cards could be played. He had been upset when Okyor had found his base, but ultimately had been able to prevent any major catastrophe from the early discovery. Lyle’s mage academy turned out to be the kind of rare card that completely altered the game, adding additional types of cards as well as increasing the number of cards that could be played. It enabled him to develop apprentice mages who could take over a lot of construction and maintenance duties for the mage deck, which meant that his main mage could go on the offensive. He boosted his magical power and then hit Okyor’s town with several major earthquakes. Okyor’s raiders and magical probes couldn’t deal equivalent damage - and the academy apprentices quickly repaired anything anyway - and the final point score was not even close, Lyle won by a landslide.
After the final turn played, he leaned back in his chair and let out a stressed sigh. “Wow. I didn’t expect to win. Guess there is a reason why Earth mage’s are the standard beginner play.” He turned to me and laid a hand on my shoulder, shaking gently. “Thanks for sticking with me during the explanations. I hope it was helpful. Dominions is a pretty common past-time for us.”
“Uh, yeah. Is there like a book or anything on it that I could study? I feel like I missed half of what happened.”
Lyle laughed as he stood, cracking his back. “You really are a mind affinity, if your first recourse is books.” He shook his head as a wry annoyance briefly crossed his handsome face. “And there are no full guides. The game is too flexible, changes too much. Look at this match. I chose the Cibellians, who are normally a low magic civilization, which means that they struggle to detect and counter purely magical threats. But because of that mage academy, which is rare enough that I’d never seen it before in a match I played, I was able to train a bounty of apprentices who could take over basic magical maintenance which would have otherwise sapped half of my own spells. It also meant enchanted equipment which meant his Klajoks and air spirits couldn’t get close. That one card probably saved the game for me. How do you write a guide about that?”
“Fair,” I interjected before he could dive back into the details of the game itself, “but what about a primer about what the different civilizations are. I’ve seen your Cibellians and Okyor’s Klajoks, who looked to be a kind of nomadic herder type. But what else is there? Or what about all the different mage types and their basic abilities.”
Lyle steered me out into the hallway as he whispered quietly. “Talk later.” I could see the memory spell fade from behind his eyes as the door swung open to reveal Clarence beaming at Lyle in the hall.
“Wonderful! Simply wonderful young Master Karenstrauss! I’m sure your family will be pleased with your triumph! Restores faith in the future, such a solid performance!”
“I am sure that everybody’s impressions of my family’s future will not be shifted too much by the outcome of one game.” Lyle responded coldly, his body language hardening at the intrusion of the gaudily dressed man.
“Of course, yes.” The smile from Clarence was practically reptilian in its coldness. “But for those with eyes, even a small victory is telling.” He leaned in. “Take the compliment, young man. It really was done well and the upset victory was quite popular upstairs. You made some ambitious bettors a nice chunk of money.” He leaned back and opened his arms wide, his smile morphing into a more open one. “And made me quite a bit more from those who took what they thought was a safe bet.”
Okyor made an appearance from his room. He was not visibly upset about losing the match and simply uttered a quiet congratulations to Lyle. This drew the attention of Clarence. “Apprentice Okyor, you made quite the stir upstairs yourself. Not choosing a dark mage. And Klajoks too. People did take notice of that, believe me.”
Okyor shrugged. “I was trying some new applications. I thought this a safe match to experiment.”
Clarence tapped his nose and winked at Okyor before turning to lead them out. He gushed over various other twists and turns from the game as if he were a professional sports commentator. It struck me as bizarre how he was talking about everything and asking questions like a journalist while Okyor and Lyle both gave fairly stiff, short answers. Then it struck me: he was trying to pump them for information about their playstyles and decision making. As the odds-maker, the more he knew, the better he could do in the future.
There were a few other patrons waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, mostly to congratulate Lyle in obnoxiously dramatic fashion. Lyle pushed through them and sought to draw me and Okyor along in his wake. Just as we reached the door though, Clarence reached out and took my elbow. He spoke softly, so as to cut under the general murmur of the casino. “I look forward to seeing more of you here, new Novice. You keep august company for one so new to the Monastery.”
I shrugged. “I’ll support my friends, but I doubt I’ll be here often on my own finances. Dominions looks like quite the expensive undertaking.”
“But profitable, when done right. As are the connections it can draw.” With that final word, Clarence let me go and turned back to the crowd, ushering them back to the table.